"It Could Have Happened Like This…": The Cabin in the Woods Edition

Confession: I LOVE the movie Clue' so much so, that I could probably recited the entire movie start to finish just off the top of my head. I'll refrain from actually demonstrating that at the moment, but just know that I could.

One of my favorite things about the m movie is the ending, or rather endings. If you are familiar with the movie, as you should be, you know exactly what I am talking about. The movie actually has THREE endings, and in between the endings are silent movie style cards which proclaim: "It could have happened like this…", "Or like this…", "But here's what really happened…". It's a pretty brilliant twist.

Every so often, I will be watching a tv show or movie and have what I refer to as an "It could have happened like this…" moment. Basically it is what I call the moment where I suddenly see another way the could have gone with the script that still would have made complete sense. Now that's not to say that the ending/course that the writers took was bad, on the contrary, some times the actual end/storyline is equally, if not more awesome, I just sometimes see an alternate.

I've decided to start writing these ideas down in segment which I am calling "It Could Have Happened Like This…". First up I'm tackling The Cabin in the Woods. First off, I want to state that I LOVED this movie, this is in no way a criticism of the film and it's actual ending, it's just an alternate path.

WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEE THE FILM YET, DO NOT READ ON MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

So we pick up in the chamber, with "The Director" explaining the archetypes to Marty and Dana, and Dana being confused about being "The Virgin". Follow through to her holding the gun on Marty, going into what I now lovingly refer to as "The Buffy/Angel moment", and him watching the werewolf creeping up behind her, and attacking her. Once again, Marty and The Director get into a scuffle for the gun. Pretty much everything can play out just as original movie, until we join Marty and Dana on the stairs sharing the joint.

Dana apologizes for almost shooting Marty, and Marty apologizes for letting her get attacked by the werewolf, and here's where things get different. What if we revealed that "The Powers That Be" at the facility made a mistake? Well, I suppose it would have to be another mistake, as lets face it there were several screw ups, but go with me on this, Dana isn't "The Virgin", it's Marty.

It certainly explains how he survived the zombie attack, he couldn't die then, he had to die last. Dana was "The Fool" all along, probably for having had an affair with her professor, because I'm still not really clear on why that detail was included, and that would have been an awesome reason for it. Thus the world is saved. Granted, Marty and Dana are still more or less fucked, as they are still trapped in the facility with an army of nightmares running amok, but that is hardly the point.

 There you have it. My alternate ending to The Cabin in the Woods.

Cabin in the Woods: AKA: Dear Joss, You are my Hero

Joss Whedon writing a horror film? Yes, please. That was my immediate reaction to the news that Joss was writing a horror flick. I have never made an attempt to hide my love of Mr. Whedon, and have frequently admitted to the fact although I often find the worlds of the Whedonverse terrifying...let's face it they are not happy places, I would also love to live there, sometimes, just to be friends with the characters he creates.

As I told my friend, whom I dragged with me opening night to see the film, "The Whedonverse is a scary place. I love to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." I waited a few weeks to post this, knowing that not everyone would be as insane about seeing it right away.

What make Joss' work so incredible is that it is so inventive. You never quite know what to expect, no one is safe. Although he admits to not liking to be know as "the guy who kills everyone", Joss isn't afraid to take a beloved character and kill them to make the rest of the story more interesting. And though fans will bitch and moan, and scream and cry, when one of their characters is killed, deep down they know, the story is better for it. That's why they keep coming back.

Cabin in the Woods was filmed back in 2009, and features what I like to refer to as a Pre-Thor Thor, and appears to be just another teens go into the woods horror movie, but that is far from the truth.


I  am going to take this moment to tell you if you have NOT seen the movie yet, you should probably move on. There will most likely be SPOILERS ahead and if you wish to avoid them, you should continue no further. Go see the film, because it is awesome, and then come back.

 

Cabin in the Woods takes the classic stero-typical, teenagers going to spring break in the woods and turns it on it's head. Ever wonder why after years of these movies the group of teens always decides to "split up"? Or why one of the girls is always a slut? Well leave it to Joss to find an explanation for it all.

It is because that is how it has to be. Plain and simple. Every country has their own ritual, and at least one must be completed to appease the great evil Gods who slumber below us. In a weird way it almost makes sense when you think about it. The idea that the reason all these years of horror films happened were because these 1/2 Witt teens were being controlled by a larger power.

It was clear from the very beginning, when they chose to open with a scene at the facility as opposed to the typical teens preparing for the trip fodder we are used to, that this film was going to be different. As to what this facility was? Well that was for the moment, any one's guess.


Next we meet our victims, Curt "The Jock", Jules "The Whore", Holden "The Egghead", Marty "The Fool", and Dana "The Virgin". Although, they do try to establish that they are not you stereotypical teens. The soon to be Jock talking about schoolwork, the soon to be Egghead "has the best hands on the team", but aside from those subtle moments, Holden suddenly needing glasses about half way through the movie and a comment Marty later makes about how Jules and Curt are acting out of character, we don't really realize anything is odd about their behavior. I am curious as to if there are any deleted scenes in which the contrast in their normal personalities and their behavior at the cabin is made more clear.

On the way to the cabin our group stops for gas, because lets face it, as establish in just about every movie in the genre, that is what you do. Right on cue, enter the creepy gas station owner, who we later learn is named Mordecai, to basically tell them, as creepy gas station owners always do, that if they continue to the cabin they will die. Of course the group shrugs this off , because that is what they are supposed to do. As they are passing through the mountain tunnel, we are shown a shot of a hawk soaring. My cynical friend muttered "Why?" at which point the hawk exploded as it hit what appeared to be some sort of force field, "Oh," he muttered as he saw the van appear on the other side.

It is important to note that through out all this we are cutting between our teens and The Facility control room, which is being controlled by two employees, Hadley and Sitterson, who's sole job seems to be making sure these "scenarios" go off without a hitch, a chemist Lin, and what appears to be their security, who is serving for the first time, Truman. Through the conversations between the four of them we learn a little more about how this operation works.

To everyone, aside from Truman, this just their job. They've been desensitized to the fact that are essentially killing people. I imagine it is almost the same way in which a butcher or slaughter house worker would be. You have a job to do and you do it. This is perfectly expressed in the fact that pretty much the entire facility comes down to place bets on which creature(s) will be picked to finish off the teens. The amount of people who showed up to bet also illustrates just how large the facility is and the amount of people needed for this ritual occur smoothly.

After being shown a creepy two way mirror. We are given a few moments of the group having fun before inevitably the cellar door flies open. And so it begins.…

Dana is dared to go down into the cellar, and she and the others soon discover that it is full of all sorts of creepy junk. It is now up to the offerings to, unknowingly, choose how they will meet their demise.

The choice is made and a pain worshiping family of Zombies is unleashed upon our poor teens. At first all seems to go according to plan, one by one they're slaughtered. It looks as though the facility has completed their task. They celebrate while images of Dana being attacked by one of the Buckners plays on a screen behind them. As Hadley explains, "The Virgin" must always be left for last, and whether she lives or dies is inconsequential. All that matters is that she suffers.

Suddenly a red phone begins to ring. Clearly that is not a good sign. It is a call from "upstairs". Something has gone wrong.

Meanwhile, our dear little Dana is fighting for her life on the docks. Just when it looks like all hope is lost for her, THWAK! Something strikes the attacking Buckner from behind. Dana looks up to see Marty standing over her.

The two escape into what appears to be an elevator shaft and descend down into a world they never dreamed existed. A world full of monsters all stored in glass cubes, just waiting to be released, and Dana comes to the horrifying realization that they chose what was unleashed upon them. What then follows is a chaotic battle for survival. Marty and Dana unleash all the captured creatures on to the facility and many many horrific deaths ensue.

In their quest to escape the two teens come to what appears to be a ritual room. Symbols of the archetypes they were forced to play line the walls, blood filling in the ones who have already passed. It is this room that they meet "The Director", played by the ever awesome Sigourney Weaver, who tries to explain the situation and why, in order save mankind, Marty must die.

There is a definite moment in where it looks as though The Director has gotten through to Dana. She stands there behind her friend, who has saved her life several times at this point, gun raised prepared to fire. It's a very Buffy-esq moment actually. Hardening back to "Becoming: Part 2", the season finale of season 2, in which Buffy has to kill Angel in order to save the world. Here Dana is presented with a very similar choice, kill someone she loves, as one loves their friends, or allow the world to be destroyed. Unfortunately she doesn't get a chance to decide as she is then attack from behind by a ware wolf. The Director and Marty grapple for the gun, and Marty emerges from the scuffle where as The Director falls from the platform they are standing on to what is presumed to be the pit that houses the ancient ones below.

Marty and a dying Dana share a joint as they wait for the end of the world.


Random Thoughts and Theories

I noticed several points through out the movie where I could not wait for the move to be released on BluRay/DVD so that I could take the time to better explore. The basement was filled with what looked like THOUSANDS of different artifacts, and I would love to take a longer look to see as many as I could and match them up to their creatures. We know that the conch matches to the Merman, the diary to the Buckners, the music box to the freaky Ballerina thing, the bladed ball to that neck blade guy and the masks to the masked killers, but what about the necklace Jules had, or the film Marty was inspecting? I figure between the creatures in their cells, the white board and the post purge scenes in the facility I would be able to match quite a few. Also I would LOVE to slow down one of the scenes during the purge, where you see the monsters ravaging the facility on several surveillance screens and the intern is holding up what looks like cue cards, just to see what the cards actually say.

There were several references to other films, my favorites of course being those made to the Evil Dead trilogy, which included, but I'm sure are not limited to, "The Angry Molesting Tree" and "Deadites" listed on the board, the animal hanging on the wall being referred to as a "Moose" and the "Maybe it was the wind," response to the cellar blowing open.

I lot of people have been complaining that revealing the force field toward the beginning of the movie took away from the Curt's death scene. Personally it didn't bother me at all. Actually, I thought it heightened his whole hero speech before the jump, knowing that there was no way he was going to make it made the moment even more ironic.

The one thing that bothered me though was in the trailer they show Dana and Marty in the elevator. For me that totally ruined the "Marty is actually alive" reveal. I know not everyone obsesses over trailers like I tend to, but still that was a pretty big mess up, in my opinion.
 
All and all I loved this movie, it was everything I had hoped it would be and then some.  It is not a straight out horror film, and if that is what you are expecting you will probably come out disappointed, but it is a brilliant new twist on an old genre. 

The River "Row Row Row Your Boat": AKA: What A Way To End It

So it's been a few weeks since the season, and hopefully not, but looking more and more likely like the series, finale of my newest obsession, The River.

It was hard to imagine how they were going to top the discovery/resurrection of Dr. Emmet Cole, which occurred at the end of the previous zombie filled episode, "The Experiment", but some how they managed to pull it off with flying colors.

I'm gonna pause for a moment, to warn you that if you haven't yet watched last night's episode, to stop here. There will be spoilers ahead, though if you haven't watched already, FOR SHAME. Anyways consider yourself warned.

We begin the episode with a series of personal interviews. What the crew members look forward to most about going home. Tess and Lincoln's reactions to having Emmet back, that sort of thing.

When it comes to the Good Doctor though, the man has become increasingly tight lipped. When asked what happened to him out there he remains aloof, offering instead apologies to Jonas, who claims to forgive him as if he hadn't left him they'd both be dead, and Lena, who is less forgiving. did anyone else find it odd that Jonas was so forgiving, when in last week's episode he told Rabbit that he didn't blame her for leaving him, he blamed Emmet, saying something along the lines of "blame the Shepard not the flock", but I digress.

So anyway, about ten mins into the episode, all the cameras are shut down since the generator had over heated and Emilio had to power down to clear it out. That's when a bullet meant for our good doctor, who is attempting to reconcile with his son, goes and KILLS Lincoln as he tries to save his father.

 That's right, only ten mins in and they go and kill one of the best parts of the show. It was sudden, shocking and completely unexpected. Ironically the one person equip to treat this kind of injury would have been Lincoln, the rest of the crew is basically helpless, able only to watch horrified as Lincoln dies before them.

Of course since the shooting occurred during the power down, and since no one is confessing, the identity of who shot Lincoln seems to be a lost cause, or is it? This is The Boiuna after all.

Jaleh comes to Emmet and Tess, claiming that she can bring Lincoln back. Tess of course is all for it, as she frequently demonstrates this season, she cares nothing for the safety of others when one of her loved ones' life is on the line. Emmet however, having spent way more time in this mysterious/often evil place, is more cautious. He vetoes the idea, say they have no way of knowing what evil forces can be invited in to Lincoln along with his soul.

Tess, of course, ignores Emmet's warning and has Jahel preform the ritual anyway. I couldn't help but wonder if any of Lincoln would be brought back. I saw Buffy, when they tried to bring Joyce back. What if whatever they invited in to Lincoln's body wasn't him?

During this freaky ritual, we watch as something slowly pulls away the sheet covering Lincoln's body, and the room slowly fill with water. After ceremony is finished Tess hurries her way to the Kitchen to check on Lincoln. She flings open the door and we get not the rush of water we, or at least I expected, but a sopping wet, highly disorientated Lincoln.

He identifies Kurt as the shooter, and despite his claims of innocence, after all if Kurt shot at Emmet, he "wouldn't have missed", the lock him away in a room on the ship. For a brief moment we are allowed to think that everything is alright, but of course it isn't. It wouldn't be The River if it were.

Jonas comes upon "Lincoln" in the kitchen making a sandwich. As Lincoln is having difficulty since his fingers are still numb, Jonas offers to help, telling Lincoln he's glad he's ok. Lincoln retorts with "Because I tried to save you? Because I'm a good person?Not like my dad..." And there you have it, the big reveal, it was Jonas, not Kurt who fired that shot. "Lincoln" tells Jonas he claimed it was Kurt so "I could kill you myself" and WHAM! With lightning fast reflexes, "Lincoln" swipes at Jonas, bare handed mind you, and tears open  Jonas' throat effectively killing him. Looks like Emmet was right, and then Lincoln then goes off to beat the crap out of Kurt.

Emmet, has been spending a lot of time in the editing bay "catching up" on what has happened on the trip. He watches the encounter with Jonas that we have just seen, only in the version that plays back, Lincoln doesn't kill Jonas, he simply thanks him for the sandwich, "just like my dad used to make", and Jonas picks up his camera and leaves. Something about this doesn't sit right with Emmet, maybe it was the fact that I doubt he made Lincoln many sandwiches, or the creepy way Lincoln stared at the camera before walking away, but added to the fact that Lincoln told him he loved him earlier, well Emmet is convinced that whatever that thing is, it is NOT his son. Now he just has to prove it, he goes off to talk to Lena.

Elsewhere, Clark has a mini melt down, because he's in love with Tess, who let's face it is now never going to leave Emmet, AJ admits to Clark he's gay, Clark tries to drink away his sorrows and he and AJ discover what's left of Jonas' body.

Lena tricks demon Lincoln into drinking some sort of potion which weakens him, when he makes an advance on her, maybe I've got too much American Horror Story on the brain but I couldn't help but wonder if his intentions were to make a demon baby with her. His Demon-ness now revealed we now get to see a few truly horrifying scenes of Demon/Lincoln restrained to the table, contorting all sorts of terrifying ways attempting to break free while mentally taunting/terrorizing Emmet and Lena.

Finally the rest of the team calls upon Kurt to ask him what to do, because they only NOW realize that he knows more then he's letting on. Kurt tells them only Lincoln can dispel the demon and he has to "want to". Cue a very "Cat's in the Cradle" type speech given to Lincoln by Emmet. Lincoln, always the fighter, eventually dispels the Boiuna out of his body.

The crew is safe, Emmet and his family are patching things up. Lena is apparently not ready to forgive Lincoln for what he said/did to her while he was possessed, because that make sense. It wasn't Lincoln who said/did those things it was an evil entity inside of him. It doesn't seem fair to blame him for what happened. As they happily make they way toward the mouth of The Boiuna believing their adventures are over, suddenly their GPS stops working. Clark send up the aerial cam and to their horror, see that the river is moving...or rather the land is moving around them, reshaping the river itself and trapping our poor crew.



Thoughts and Theories and Such

During the ritual, Tess asks Jahel how she knows to preform the ritual and Jahel simply starts "She is telling me". The question of who "She" is is ne'er answered. Was it The Boiuna herself, searching for entry to inflict harm upon our crew? Or was it Jahel's on mother, who also possesses Jahel's "gift"?

So Emmet tells Jonas, he's so sorry for leaving him and that he didn't know what else to do, that if he had stayed they both would have died. Despite claiming to forgive him, Jonas, as we later learn, still blames Emmet for leaving him. But Emmet was right. If he hadn't left Jonas, they probably both would have died, and then Lena would never have "felt" that Emmet and her father were alive, causing her to remotely set off the beacon. If she'd never set off the beacon then the "rescue team" never would have gone down to The Boiuna in the first place and Jonas would have been left hanging in the trees, almost dead for all eternity. So in actuality, his abandoning Jonas is what allowed him to be saved in the first place.

I feel like the kind of just threw in that  A.J. was gay. There is nothing wrong with that, and no reason that he wouldn't be, I just feel the way they revealed it, wasn't very believable.

The ending? Ok so if you have to go out in only eight episodes, at least we were given a doozey of an ending. The fucking river TRAPPED them...how horrifying is that?!?! Sure, I think there are still many stories to be told, many new facets to explore, and I def don't like the fact that we are going out with Lena being, needlessly, pissed at Lincoln, but as far as premature endings go it wasn't half bad. There was a brief rumor that Netflix might pick up the show, but I haven't heard anything further on that front. At least, we get a DVD, the first season, is it wrong to hold out hope since the cover says "Complete First Season" and not "Complete Series"?, will be available on May 22nd. You can pre-order it on Amazon here.

The River "Doctor Emmet Cole": AKA: Will He Won't He Eat The Dog

Intense. I have mulled it over for a few days now, and have come to the decision that is the best word to describe last week's episode of The River.

Armed with the knowledge that Russ had given them about where Emmett was last headed, our fearless crew heads to the Sahte Falls to continue the search. While they don't find Emmet, come on that would be too easy, plus we still have two more episodes to air, they do discover a major find, Emmet's camera bag, chock full of tapes.

What we now get to witness is the good doctor's decent into madness, and what may have been one of the most suspenseful/heartbreaking/gut wrenching hours of television I've seen in a long time. On top of that it was also a very informative episode, we learned a lot more about what made the characters who they are. How Tess was the mastermind behind "Undiscovered Country" as a way of helping Emmet cope withe the death of their first child, a baby named Alice. The want/need to see Alice again also gave us tremendous insight as to why Emmet was so desperate to find "The Source". He thought he had found the loophole between life and death and was desperate to use it to once again see his baby girl.

We learned more about the doomed original crew as well. We saw again how Russ, who'd had enough, stayed behind on the non functioning Magus, while Emmet and his two camera operators, Manny and Rabbit, along with Salsa the dog, headed deeper into the Baunia. One can only imagine that is how The Exodus crew found him, alone and stranded.

Emmet also reveals in an argument with Russ that Lena is "marked for this", which to her credit, Lena goes to investigate and discovers "THE MARK" hidden beneath her hair. A discovery she, somewhat wisely chooses to keep to herself. She does however confide in Jonah, that she is the one who set off Emmet's beacon, the one that gave them all hope and brought them all on this journey in the first place. Apparently now she feels guilty about it. One can't help but wonder then, why she didn't feel more guilt when A MAN DIED in the first episode, seeing as him being there in the first place was her fault, but I digress.

Back to Emmet's suicidal mission to find "The Source". Things start off fairly lighthearted and fun, Emmet even busts out a spot on Clark impression at one point, causing the viewing Clark to smile. It was brief, but in that moment you could see, despite their differences, the mutual love and respect the two men had for each other. Then when Rabbit attempts to make a move on Emmet, while they are sitting around the campfire, he reveals that even though they are separated he still loves Tess.

Of course, things soon take a dark and sinister turn. It starts off small, a skinned monkey, stolen provisions, nothing unsurvivable. Then freaky shit starts going down, there's a weird whistling noise, and poor Manny who just can't keep up, gets himself skinned and impaled on a tree.

Rabbit, gets understandably freaked, and suggests they head back. When Emmet refuses she decides to sneak off and leaves poor Emmet with no gear, save for a bag of camera equipment and a satellite phone. Scared or not, that was definitely a shitty thing to do, and I for one sincerely hope Rabbit got eaten by the jungle because of it.

What we now witness is Emmet's lonely, and treacherous trek on through the jungle. He becomes, feverish, starving, struggling to just survive. Eventually near starvation he finds a mango tree, and climbs it in a feeble attempt to gather food, but at this point he has become so weak he is unable to keep his balance. He falls from the tree, breaking his leg, forcing him to drag himself along the jungle floor in order to continue. At one point he becomes so desperate he even contemplates killing his dog and eating it just to survive. Thankfully this does not occur, despite a few terrifying moments of debate.

But what maybe the most heartbreaking/gut wrenching scene of the whole episode though, was watching Lincoln realize that the last time he spoke to his father, when he kind of blew him off, was while Emmet was on this trek. His father had reached out to him, while he was essentially dying, and he couldn't be bothered. Of course, at the time he hadn't know, but still. It was a great reminder of the fact that Lincoln's relationship with his father wasn't perfect, in fact up until Tess convinced him to come in this search, it was anything but. Watching him sit there seeing his father reach out to him, and now knowing that may have been the last time he would ever speak to him, literally made me feel sick to my stomach for him.

Then, just when we think we've seen the end of Dr. Emmet Cole, as he lays starving, sick and broken on the jungle floor, he is somehow granted a reprieve. What appears to be the tribe he has been looking for all along comes along, scoops him up and brings him to what seems to be a busy outpost.

With renewed hope our crew sets out to find the outpost and hopefully a fully alive Emmet. As the near the. Out post they are happily greeted by Salsa, the lucky he didn't get eaten dog. However, when they reach the outpost it is immediately clear some thing is not right. It no longer looks like the bustling place full of people we see on the tapes. Something appears horribly wrong, the place looks deserted, and as though things were left in a hurry.

The question once again becomes, what happened to Doctor Emmet Cole. Honestly I can not wait till tomorrow night to find out more.

Terra Nova Canceled: AKA: Another One Bites The Dust

Well the other side to pilot season rears its ugly head. The side where last year's new shows start fully getting the boot. Sure there are some shows that get the axe quick, The Playboy Club, Free Agents, Work It, jut to name a few, and then there are the other casualties. The ones the network has allowed allowed those who watched to fall in love with.

This week FOX announced they are giving Terra Nova the axe, although they did say they would shop the show to other networks, but with it's super sized budget, it's hard to imagine many networks jumping at the bit to pick up the tab. While I didn't personally get full into Terra Nova, I am saddened by the amazingly talented Stephen Lang, otherwise know as "The Silver Fox", being out of a job. Though there are reports that Netflix is looking to maybe pick it up.

Now is when I go into panic mode, okay panic may be being a little over dramatic, but I am growing concerned for The River on ABC.  I've made it absolutely no secret that I hooked on this freaky little Tuesday night show, and with only two episodes left I can't help but be antsy over whether or not "The Powers that Be" over at ABC will renew.

I know the ratings have not been stellar, but it really is a good show. I feel like a lot of people tuned out after not "loving" the first hour of the two hour premiere. This frustrates me to no end, I am of the firm belief that pilots, with a handful of exceptions,  just aren't good. There's too much exposition and introduction to take care of, which is why I abide by the rule of three. Always give a show three episodes to decide whether or not it's worth watching. If you aren't hooked by the third episode you probably never will be.

I actually find it quite sad that our culture seems to become so impatient. Shows no longer have a chance to grow and find their audience. Not all shows are going to be breakout hits. Neither Cheers or M*A*S*H had very high numbers their first seasons and both went on to have very successful runs. It just feels like currently the networks are so concerned with finding the "next big thing" they have forgotten they need to give the audience time to get to know/love the characters/storyline/shows they already have.

The Carrie Diaries: AKA: You Win CW

So I have to admit, so far I have been a little disappointed in the CW's new pilot casting. Over the years I have come to expect a certain kind of casting for them. While the ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX seem to cast "stars" are at least well know actors in their shows, I have always been able to count on the CW to cast less well known talent. I'm a sucker for new talent, so this whole trend of casting well know established actors in new tv shows, has not exactly thrilled me.

This year the CW seemed to merely be casting "kind of know" actors and recycling their own actors. A perfect example being their new pilot Arrow. Side bar, I'm in no way knocking Arrow, as I've mentioned before I am ridiculously excited for this series. The cast includes, Stephen Amell, who has guested on a few episodes of The Vampire Diaries, Katie Cassidy, who played characters on Gossip Girl, Supernatural and 7th Heaven, and Willa Holland who also appeared on Gossip Girl.

But now? All is forgiven. I know I am a little behind on this announcement, but hey give me a break I was out on vacation. On March 4th Deadline released an article announcing Brendan Dooling had been cast in the role of Walt in the CW's new pilot The Carrie Diaries. The series is based on the book of the same name which is written as a prequel to the Sex and the City series, and Walt is described as "Carrie's best guy friend who is most likely gay but doesn't know it yet as it isn't an easy thing to come to terms with in the mid-1983." For those interested the article can be found here.

Brendan Dooling is an awesomely talented up and comer, most recently heard as the voice of Chippy the Elf in the animated holiday film, An Elf's Story: The Elf  on the Shelf, and exactly the type of actor that the CW should be casting. I am beyond excited to see The Carrie Diaries now. CW you have totally redeemed yourself in my eyes...at least for now.

Awake: AKA: Alright NBC You Have My Attention

Last week was the premiere of NBC's new series Awake. I'm not going to lie I have been looking forward to this show since I read the script last pilot season. Although I was saddened when the premiere got pushed back from its original air date, because the "Awake Powers that be" needed to take some extra time to work on continuity, I was happy to see that the series was treating the complex story line with the care and commitment that it deserved.

I was beyond excited to finally get to sit down and watch the show, which luckily did not disappoint. I don't want to write too much plot wise about the show, since its so show is so beautifully interwoven, and talking too much about the plot would spoil it.

The basic premise is about detective Michael Britten, who gets into a horrific car accident with both his wife, Hannah, and teenage son, Rex, in the car, cut to the "present" where he is sitting in therapy. Here's where things get interesting and we learn that Michael is living in two realities, one in which his son died in the accident, and the other in which his wife was the one who perished. He goes to sleep in one reality and wakes up in the other, never knowing in which he is living and which he is dreaming. In both realities, his department has assigned him a partner and sent him to therapy, the catch? Both realities have different partners and therapists, both of whom are convinced that they are the "real" world. Adding an even more interesting twist to all this is the fact that details in Michael's cases at work seem to over lap.

They have assembled a fantastic cast to tell this story, Jason Issacs, B.D. Wong, Cherry Jones and Wilmer Valderrama just to name a few."The Powers That Be" have really done an amazing job at creating a different look/feel for the different realities. In the reality where Hannah, survived the world is brighter. Everything just seems to be shot in more vibrant and full of light. In Rex's reality, everything is shot in darker, more muted tones, allowing for a more dark and gritty feel. It's really interesting to see how just the way a series is shot can completely change the tone of a show.

I can not wait to see how they keep this premise going in future episodes.