Hiatuses, cancellations, and new stuff!

So, there hasn't been anything new on this blog in a little while. Reasons include:

• Arrow has been on hiatus
• Cult has been canceled with no indication of when the remaining eps will air
• Zero Hour has been canceled, but is still airing in Canada
• I have a part-time job (yay!)

I've also been watching The Following, aka the last cult conspiracy show standing. It's getting quite interesting, but the characters continue to do more and more stupid things. I want to start a drinking game based on how often Kevin Bacon goes into a building where a serial killer is without backup. There may or may not be a post on the compiled stupidity of the first season.

The pilot of Defiance aired this weekend, and it's a kind of last-remaining-human-outpost show that feels like Falling Skies meets Outcasts. So far, I think I kind of like it.

Tried watching the first two episodes of Hannibal. I found it deeply weird. Deeply, deeply weird and kind of fucked up. Like, the creepiest episodes of the early years of X-Files weird and fucked up.

And my roommate has gotten us both addicted to Alias. Some of the stuff is a blast from the past and is so late 90's/early 00's it's ridiculous. And there's a young Bradley Cooper in it!

Best of all, I have 20 episodes of Ancient Aliens queued up on my DVR. My "Best Of" selection of some of the episode titles includes:

• Aliens and the Secret Code (sounds like Nancy Drew)
• Aliens and the Third Reich (yep, Nazis again!)
• Aliens and the Undead (zombies are popular, too)
• Aliens and Bigfoot (sounds like X-Files)
• Aliens and Dinosaurs (There was a Doctor Who episode or three like this)
• Aliens and Cover-Ups (Conpsiracy theories exist to cover up the real conspiracies!)
• Destination Orion (We already know that all alien things lead to Orion)

So, yeah. New stuff soon!

Zero hour: 1 x 02 "Face"

"One is the number of man. One is the number of you. But sometimes one is not one. Sometimes one is two."

Well, I'm glad to see that the principles of basic mathematics are out the window in this show. That's probably going to explain a lot.

[consider this your warning about spoilers, except that it's hard to call them 'spoilers' when the show's plot progresses in exactly the most convenient and predictable way possible, however illogical that may be]

So, then the FBI Agent and Our Hero are in the sub with Vincent, having found a Nazi that looks just like Our Hero, a fob watch, and a cryptic journal. The FBI Agent points out that it's best to kill Vincent now before he can wreak more chaos. Our Hero points out that if he's killed, he won't be able to say where Leila (Our Hero's wife/motivation) is, and Vincent understandably sides with him, so they convince the agent to back down. Then, Our Hero starts pestering Vincent about what the frozen bodies in the sub are, and why this random pocket watch is important, and what he knows, and he takes cell phone photos of the pocket watch, and in the process Vincent makes himself the most relatable character in all of this show by being annoyed at him.

Then, Vincent somehow blows up his SUV, hijacks the FBI's seaplane, and sinks the Nazi sub all at once. But, the FBI Agent and Our Hero somehow manage to get back to NY, where they start bickering again and Our Hero insists that his wife is still alive because he believes it.

The assistant is wondering why he can call the local police, the FBI, and INTERPOL, and they'll still tell them that they haven't made any progress in the case and they don't have any new information. I, personally, am wondering why he can just call up the FBI and INTERPOL and expect to get any information about one of their cases in the first place.

Now, we're back with Vincent, and he threatens to kill Leila and dissolve her body in lye. Which will totally work, because people do it on crime shows, right? Anyways, he then asks her to prove why she's valuable to him in order to save her life. She says she can't, presumably dooming her.

Back at the magazine offices, the priest walks in, and everyone starts talking about how people always think that it's the End Times. Then, the priest goes on about how, in Revelation 16, the first angel pours out his "bowl", and "painful sores" break out on people. He explains that some people, although not him, believe that it refers to AIDS. Then, he says, "Next angel comes, pours out his bowl on the rivers, they became as blood."

Hang on, let's look at that: Revelation 16 is where angels pour out bowls on things, so that's one point for the writers. But...

• The first bowl is "...ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image." So if you consider that the show seems to be referring to this as HIV/AIDS, that creates some major unfortunate implications.  
• The second bowl is the seas becoming like blood, whereas the rivers being like blood is the third bowl, so they got those mixed up. It may seem like a minor mistake, and maybe could even be easily retconned, if it wasn't for the fact that a priest said it.

So then they open up this other pocket watch, and observe that the gears are soldered together. "This clock was never meant to work!" they say. "Who makes a clock that's not supposed to tell time?" Well, aside from the Doctor and the Master and a bunch of other Time Lords, I'd put shadowy secret organizations that a fake CIA division is involved with pretty high on the list.

At least not all of the clocks will have hidden diamond treasure maps in them. But, they have a brilliant idea: Maybe it's a celestial map! Of course it's a celestial map, because the characters' massive leaps to conclusions are always correct if they're necessary to keep the plot moving. So then they look at the time and date that the watch is stopped at, and pull out some kind of book, and somehow manage to figure out that the constellation needs to be viewed in Chennai, India.

Our Hero decides that more clues to this might be in the cryptic journal, but refuses to try to chase down the journal because the FBI Agent has it. The girl assistant agrees to, tracks down the FBI agent, they chat, and the FBI agent hands over the journal saying it's not of any value to the FBI so our protagonists can have it. The guy assistant sends a previously unseen flunky to go online and research plagues and AIDS and rivers of blood, and them him and the girl translate the journal from German.

Anyways, the assistants translate the journal, discover that some guy named Corben or something was a Nazi doing field research on this "Zero Hour" thing (isn't it so convenient how everyone used the same code name for it?) and that a private collector had more information. They track down the collector, and he's conveniently a fan of the magazine, so he's happy to help them out. Super uncomfortably, he's got an entire room decked out in a ton of Nazi paraphenalia, where he shows them a filmstrip kind of thing from the Nazis. It's about their expedition to India to talk to a girl who could reportedly talk to the dead, and this Corben guy looks suspiciously like Our Hero, which manages to make things even more uncomfortable.

Somewhere in here, we're shown a shot of a bathtub with a lot of empty jugs of lye. We can't see the interior of the tub so it's unclear whether this is meant to be a red herring in the classic vein of "No body, no proof," or whether the producers have simply decided that showing the body would be too much for an otherwise very PG-rated show, or perhaps if the producers simply could not be bothered to figure out what it would actually look like (much less have the effects department try to recreate it) if someone decided to attempt to dissolve a body in lye. 

In the meantime, Our Hero and the FBI Agent have made their way to Chennai. They sort of make peace and agree not to kill Vincent when they find him. Just as they're about to have nothing to talk about, Our Hero gets a call from the assistants informing them of everything they've figured out. So they go to find this woman, and the FBI agent mentions that the ideal of a Hindu woman being an apostle might be offensive enough for people to kill over it.

Back at the office, the assistants find a letter in a secret pocket in the journal. It's a letter from Corben to his wife, and it's going on and on like some kind of inanely mushy love letter. I think this guy is supposed to be the Rosicrucian/Nazi double agent? During this voiceover, we have a bizarre scene of the Nazi who looks like Our Hero giving a young Hindu girl something, and his Rosicrucian cross, and she puts a Bindi on his forehead. And I suppose it supposed to promote happiness and harmony and "we're all humans inside" but it just comes off as weird and extremely uncomfortable, although I'm not educated enough on Hinduism to know if that scene is flat-out wrong or just unlikely.

So Our Hero and the FBI Agent find this "Hindu holy woman," as they describe her, and bring her an "offering" of something. She tells them that Our Hero had told her to destroy the clock if she ever saw his face. Our Hero goes off on the but-I-KNOW-my-wife-is-alive tangent and so it's very important that she tell him her secrets anyways. She refuses, saying that his return would prophesy "the coming of the angel of death." I'm trying to decide whether this would be more entertaining with Terry Pratchett's version of Death or the Supernatural version.

As our protagonists leave, someone starts shooting up the area, and unsurprisingly, Vincent shows up. The holy woman willingly moves away from where she's standing, and Vincent steals the clock, then shoots her. So he's attacked on Catholic priest, killed another just a moment ago, and now has shot a Hindu holy woman. Not only is he on his way to becoming a serial killer (or perhaps a spree killer?), but a good DA could have a field day with hate crimes legislation after the next few victims. Anyways, as Vincent drives off, we're treated to a frankly hilarious scene of Our Hero reaching his hand through the fence towards the car and yelling "Leila! I'll find you!" as if he believes that Vincent is toting her around in the trunk of his car or something.

Then, Our Hero returns to where the Hindu holy woman is, and she's dying. Because this episode hasn't had enough awkward moments yet, the woman says with her last breath that she was wrong, and something about the darkness of the coming apocalypse, and that Our Hero alone holds the key to something (despite the fact that Vincent always seems to be one step ahead?) and if he continues chasing Vincent across the planet, he'll bring about the end of the world.

So, I'm not sure what I just watched. Lots of plot threads have been left dangling, and now I'm curious to see if this is a revelation-style apocalypse, and even more curious to see what the writers have decided that the secret that triggers it would be.

Off-topic: Stats!

Well, more specifically, the search terms that have led people to my blog:

This is going to get even more interesting once I start posting about the other conspiracy shows - I think I need to re-watch the pilot of Cult, and post about that, too.

Zero Hour: Pilot

So, the promos kept comparing it to National Treasure. How could I resist? This could be yet another opportunity to use [a slightly adapted version of] my Ancient Alien Bingo cards!

[This technically has spoilers, but they're not really anything that wasn't revealed in the promo. Or anything you won't know by the time the promo for the next episode airs]

So it opens with this probably-supposed-to-be-ominous voiceover:
"Twelve is a magic number. Twelve is divine. Twelve is both the beginning and end of time"

Yay, yet another show that makes me think the writers have been watching too much Doctor Who!

As far as I can tell from the preview, this show is about clocks. True to this implication, we see a flashback sequence where people are building clocks. At least, I think it's a flashback, because there are candles, but everyone looks suspiciously modern, like this is still the original pickup pilot.

Yes, it is a flashback! Apparently in the 1940's, because we see that there are Nazis. One of the characters quotes the "Nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom" Bible verse about the "End of Days." Another character says what turns out to be the most rational and intelligent statement in this entire episode: "Every generation has thought it applies to them and them alone. Every generation has been wrong."

Speaking of being wrong, the person quoting the verse cites it as Luke 4:22. But, wait! Luke 4:22 actually says, in the NIV:

"All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked."

So, aside from the fact that this show involves many elements of Catholicism and therefore managing to get a Bible reference wrong is an especially egregious research fail, let's continue.

Then, his friends retorts, "But never before have the dead risen!" That's right, readers! This show doesn't just involve Nazis, but Nazis and zombies! And it gets better! As they're sneaking around in this secret Nazi facility, they run across a baby with white eyes, and say "This child was born of no womb." And, because this isn't enough, a Nazi is shown holding a cross with the Rosicrucian symbol on it!

Then, the Nazis storm the cathedral, as people sneak something away. One old guy says "Not even God can help any more. Only the Twelve can." Seriously, this is so heavy-handed, who was writing it?

Anyways, so now that we've stuffed enough conspiracy theory elements for a Dan Brown novel into the first four minutes of the show, we go to modern-day Brooklyn.

We see a couple - later revealed to be the lead character and his wife - strolling through a flea marked or something. The woman buys a clock and goes somewhere, while the guy goes to his job. His job is running a magazine of some sort, which seems to be largely focused on cryptozoology, with a staff of precisely two assistants, a guy and a girl.

Then, he gets a phone call. His wife's shop is being broken into! When you discover that someone's breaking into the building where you are, is the proper reaction to:

1. Call 911?
2. Call and ask for your husband to call 911, who then shuffles off that task to his assistant.

If you guessed #1, congrats, you're right! If you also guessed that the reason #2 exists is because that's precisely what our intrepid heroes did, you're also correct.

Next scene, the police have arrived, and the wife is missing. The main character is angry that the police only asked "generic" (yes, that's the exact word he used) questions and haven't tried to figure out why the thief didn't take anything other than the wife. Apparently, the ideas that a) maybe the break-in was simply the means for a kidnapping and/or b) maybe he was scared off when he realized that someone was inside, calling for help, are both unsatisfactory. No, this must be a conspiracy!

A few hours later, the FBI stops by the guy's home! They say they know more than the local police, because they've "been working on this case for a very, very long time." Then, they ask this man if the name "White Vincent" means anything. They claim that he's the world's "highest-paid mercenary" (again, exact words) and that he's "on every no-fly list we've got." Because, in alternate-conspiracy-world, the TSA's no-fly list that nobody can even find out if they're on is insufficient.

Then, the FBI agents start asking him questions about his wife, trying to figure out if she had any connection to anything that might make this "White Vincent" character take notice of her. This prompts a complete 180 in our character's behavior. Rather than being angry that people aren't going enough to find his wife, he now seems entirely concerned about the fact that the FBI thinks that maybe his wife was somehow involved with something less than perfectly pure and legal, and unbelieving of the idea that they may still want to find his wife.

So, after they leave, the guy pulls out the clock his wife bought earlier that day, which he correctly (but through an inexplicable leap of logic) assumes is the thief's highly sought-after item. So he takes the clock back to his office, where the assistants gather around and pull out a diamond. They see a "flaw" on the diamond, but after examining it closely and shining some light so it refracts on the wall, it's a map! With a spot somewhere in Canada marked! This is starting to feel almost like a plotline in Alias... but not as much as it feels like National Treasure 5 or whatever they're on by now.


Now, they're arguing about whether or not treasure maps really exist. Now, regardless of what they think, this is a map, with a spot marked and labelled on it. It seems pretty obvious that there's something important that someone wanted hidden at that spot.

So, they've decided that the only person who can explain it to them is a priest that this guy know. The priest explains to them that this involved Rosicrucians, but as monks or whatever, they probably didn't do the whole "treasure" thing, and therefore the map  Priest points out that rosicrucians probably didn't do treasure, so the place marked on map is probably lost city, in arctic circle.

Just as the plot might slow down, this guy gets a call on his cell phone! The person basically keeps asking questions about the clock, and asks the guy to exchange the clock for his wife. The guy agrees to that, and leaves the diamond in the church safe with the priest.

But, when the guy informs the FBI about this, he inexplicably decides to fudge the truth and tell them that the caller is demanding a cash ransom for his wife, not a clock. So, the FBI runs him through it, and says they'll track the caller. As the exchange goes down, although it's not clear which item is being exchanged, the FBI discovers that the caller was routing everything through a room in an empty building.

Then, it turns out that the priest was attacked, and the diamond was stolen from the church safe. The main character guy tells the FBI that "We are done" and says that the caller "got what he wanted." When the FBI asks what it is that the mysterious caller wanted, the guy apparently decides that finding his wife is not remotely as important as taunting the FBI, so he refuses to say and storms off.

Anyways, he decides that this mysterious person has gone to New Bartholomew, taking his wife along with him, and decides to go up there himself. The female FBI agent catches up with him at the airport, and once again he refuses to do more than obnoxiously hint at the fact that the FBI has no idea what's going on. The FBI agent points out that there's nothing he can do to stop her following him, and that she also has a gun and is allowed to take it on the plane, and says something about terrorists and convinces him to grudgingly cooperate with her.

Then, the two assistants, annoyed at being left behind, decide to track down the person who made the clock. They find out that he's 93, living in Bulgaria, and has neither phone nor email so the only way to talk to him is to fly out there and go to the address in person.

Then, we see someone who's presumably the kidnapper. He scratches a "zero" on the bathroom mirror, and takes out contacts, revealing creepy white eyes. Presumably, he is the white-eyed baby that the Nazis created. Presumably, this is also what the "white" in "White Vincent" refers to.

Anyways, the guy and the FBI agent have managed to get to the location of this "New Bartholomew" with almost GPS-like precision, only to find a Nazi submarine with a variety of bodies frozen inside. Apparently, they have managed to beat the kidnapper to this site.

The assistants track down the clockmaker, and show him the clock. Eventually, the clockmaker explains that in 1938, in a move so secret that not even the Pope knew because something secret could bring about the end of the world, so the Church invited twelve "New Apostles" to keep this secret. They were named things like "New Luke", "New Peter", and - you guessed it! - "New Bartholomew." Apparently, New Bartholomew was both a Catholic and a Nazi! I am not going to make any comments about the Pope here...

So, apparently our Nazi/Rosicrucian apostle, like all the other ones, had an individualized clock. The clockmaker goes on to give us a final voiceover. Apparently, the Nazis had figured out the first steps to achieving eternal life! And he says that it's important to find the clocks before "the enemy" does (what enemy? Are there still Nazis around?) and that the secret thing will pit "science against religion, country against country..." and that this giant upheaval is called "zero hour," because in the middle of hiding world-changing secrets from Nazis the most important thing to do is to come up with clock-themed names for everything.

So far, I've got two reactions: One, I'm disappointed that so far, we haven't seen anything about the dead having risen, and two, I'm wondering what kind of secret the writers could possibly dream up that could be that important.