Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture

Midseason TV 2016 – Plenty of Sci-fi & Fantasy

This is a pretty big year for mid-season sci-fi/fantasy shows. We already had the debut of The Expanse, but there are a bunch more new genre shows that run the gamut from glossy comic-book super-heroes, to Anglo-Saxon legends. Many of them are adaptations of successful books. While I can’t say that any of them stand…

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Movie Review

Finally, I’ve gone to watch The Force Awakens. I know, judging by the nature of this blog, you’d have thought that I’d have been first in line, bright and early on opening day. What can I tell you? The Force Pushes “Snooze” and Rolls Over For a Bit, OK? Anyway, now that I’ve seen the…

2015 TV Characters: Love and Hate

This season of new shows has definitely not been ground-breaking, and that is reflected in the somewhat flat landscape of new characters. Nevertheless, I have found a few characters to love on new shows like The Grinder and Scream Queens. However, I also found some new characters that I just hate as well (though not…

Downton and the Doctor: Christmas Specials 2015

As I mentioned previously, I love how my favourite UK shows like to do special Christmas episodes. They’re a nice break in the long wait between seasons. I had even hoped that maybe it would be a “trifecta” this year with Sherlock also having a holiday special, but alas “The Abominable Bride” is not airing…

The Expanse – TV Preview

I had pretty mixed feelings as I watched the preview episode of the new sci-fi TV series, The Expanse (which has been made available on space.ca and syfy.com) which premieres in mid-December. It is part of the US Syfy channel’s efforts to return to better quality science fiction programming, and has been hailed as a…

Getting Creepy with Netflix

I’m not one for horror movies (kinda chicken that way), but around Halloween I think it might be fun to scare myself a little (in the safety of my living room) and Netflix helps by providing all kinds of movies to choose from. I don’t think I will ever really enjoy those gross-out-gory kinds of…

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson – Book Review

I’m enjoying all this super-powers/super-hero stuff on TV and in the movies, but I admit I’m also getting tired of how they are very similar and blending into each other. That’s one of the things I loved about Brandon Sanderson’s novel, Steelheart, and a big part of why I also loved the sequel, Firefight. In…

Fall TV 2015 – Weeks 3/4

Fall tv premieres are winding down, and we’ve had a few episodes with many of the early-starters. Unfortunately, the new crop really hasn’t had very many standouts. I’ve already stopped watching a number of the shows that I tried out a week or two ago. In any case, there are a few more shows returning…

Fall TV 2015 – Week 2

The second week of the new tv season was full of surprises. I gave a chance to a few new shows (Code Black, Quantico, The Grinder) that I didn’t plan to watch (They were free episodes on iTunes — thank you, Marketing Department!) and I ended up liking them way more than expected. There are…