The Wild Blog in the West

Spoilers for anyone who has not read A Feast for Crows or A Dance With Dragons, or the released chapters of The Winds of Winter. By now, viewers of Game of Thrones  can see that the show's creators are beginning to shift the story toward its end game, toward the final Ice Zombie Apocalypse and One Who Wins the Iron Throne.  The outcome of most characters is highly uncertain.  Will Daenerys Targaryen fly her way back to the Throne on dragon wings?  Or will Jon Snow forge his way to the Iron Throne through a phalanx of ice zombies?  Or will it be stoic, meticulous Stannis Baratheon?  Or (f)Aegon?  Or Sansa Stark?  Maybe some combination of the above, like Jon and Daenerys, or even Jon and Sansa.* Who do I think it will be?  Daenerys. She seems like the obvious choice, which in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe usually means she is marked for death.  And I would not at all put it past Martin or the show's producers to kill her off...

For the previous installment, go here . "Why even bother?" you might wonder.  When you think of media portrayal of introverts, could a less likely example come to mind? Sometimes you find introversion, and treatment of introverts, in unexpected places.  And sometimes the examination of lack of introversion can be just as revealing. First, here's the story.  Six kids, two parents, and a housekeeper, blended together through marriage in 1969, on a sitcom that would last five years.  While Mike and Carol Brady occupied a more central role in the earlier seasons, in later seasons, they would frequently be supporting players to the kids: Greg, Marcia, Peter, Jan, Bobby, and Cindy.  Most episodes were surprisingly grounded in real life situations, such as school elections, fundraisers, football games, romantic rivals, school plays, and learning to drive.  That is, when they weren't about cursed Tiki statues, unlikely celebrity cameos, or being a profe...

For the previous installment, go here . And so we continue to the next installment of the Introvert series, to a show that no one takes seriously, yet seems indelibly etched into our collective brain.  That would be Saved By the Bell , the original series that ran from 1989 until 1993. Saved By the Bell  followed six high school students on their daily adventures.  The series was a spinoff of a failed Hayley Mills star vehicle, Good Morning Miss Bliss , which aired in 1988.  Audiences were underwhelmed by the show's tepid humor and moralizing, and Good Morning Miss Bliss headed for the chopping block.  Yet instead of swinging the axe, NBC decided to buy the rights and rework the show, turning it into Saved By the Bell .  Among the "saved" were lead characters Zack Morris, Samuel "Screech" Powers, Lisa Turtle, and the principal, Richard Belding.  Gone were Miss Bliss, the rest of the cast, the Indiana location, and several IQ points.  ...

In case you didn't hear, Jean Auel's Earth's Children   will be headed for a television screen near you in 2015.  Only the pilot, but with a distinguished team behind it (including Ron Howard and Linda Woolverton), a series will almost certainly follow. While details are sketchy, it is likely that the show's producers intend to portray all six of the Earths's Children  books.  That should be a challenge, given that the final three installments  received their share of criticism .  But perhaps in skilled hands, even the final installments can become an emotional, exciting viewing experience.  Below are seven ways in which a television series might improve upon its source material. 1.  Better Dialogue.   Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplays for  Beauty and the Beast , The Lion King , and Maleficent , so it's safe to say that she knows her way around dialogue.  As will anyone else who comes on board.  While Auel's ...

For my previous Things That I Love, read here . I'm always the last one to know. That's an exaggeration, but not a big one.  I usually discover awesome shows only after their awesomeness has been proclaimed to the world.  Such was the case with Mad Men , Breaking Bad , and Homeland .  And such is the case with Orphan Black . The buzz surrounding Season One and early Season Two brought me to BBC America, even though I watch maybe five shows a year, and usually never on channels not named HBO or AMC.  I knocked back 10 episodes in two days -- hooray for On Demand and marathon viewing! -- and never looked back. Orphan Black  is the type of show that could not have worked even five years ago, due to the special effects required.  It is an amazing blend of technology, writing, and acting.  If any of those parts failed, the show would fail.  Fortunately, they seem poised to succeed for quite some time. So?  What's It About? From here,...

A few days ago, the 15th anniversary of a milestone passed: I had my first fanfics published on a major fan website.  They were Daria fanfics on the now departed Outpost Daria, then the mecca of all things involving the MTV cartoon.  I remember trembling when I saw my fanfics listed among the two dozen under the "New Updates" header.  Now it was official!  I feared abusive comments, but mainly expected to be ignored. Days passed and comments trickled in... and not only were they positive, but two of them even came from  Daria fanfiction's top dogs at the time!  I printed out each email and tucked them into a folder, which I still keep around.  The positive feedback left me warm and floaty, and dying to write more!  Burnt out from revising my historical novel (ironically, a proto version of my current one ), I found writing scripted "episodes" of my favorite show to be invigorating. The stories in my head began to multiply and form the bead...

Since I have been weighing in on modern movie musicals, I could not resist the opportunity to comment on Carrie Underwood's version of The Sound of Music , which was aired last Thursday to big ratings and will be airing again tonight.  True, it is not exactly the same thing -- it is not a movie musical, but a televised version of the original stage musical of The Sound of Music .  Yet it stands in the long, deep shadow of the 1965 movie  The Sound of Music  starring Julie Andrews, with every note destined to be compared.  (Though I have not yet reviewed movies older than 20 years, let me just say that this movie will not appear on the Wrong list.) Really, this was a can't win situation from the get-go.  Underwood and the brain trust behind the televised version deserve credit for chutzpah alone.  Beyond that, was this a successful musical on its own terms?  Well... kind of.  To the extent that it wasn't, it can't all be blamed on Underwoo...

... on television, that is. Warning for the squeamish: extensive, sometimes graphic, talk about nudity.  If that's not your thing, get out now.   I like when characters are not afraid to get naked on television.  The scenes on network TV where the woman and man sit post-coital, with the woman's chest carefully concealed, always make me snicker.  So I was grateful when premium cable channels like HBO said: "Fuck it all.  Let's show people the way they really are."  And real people get naked.  Not just above the waist, but below. However, there was a point where the nudity started to feel less "real" and more exploitative.  I feel this way often while watching Game of Thrones , but noticed it much sooner.  It was during an episode of Boardwalk Empire , a show that I've tried really hard to like, but which leaves me cold.  Investigators were in a coroner's office looking at the body of a murdered woman.  The corpse lay on the t...

The following contains spoilers for both Game of Thrones the TV show and A Song of Ice and Fire, the book series by George RR Martin on which the TV show is based.  If you don't want to be spoiled, TURN BACK!  TURN BACK NOW! I'M SERIOUS!!! REALLY!!!!!!!!! Okay.  Can't say you weren't warned. I would love to claim that I've been a George RR Martin fan since A Game of Thrones first hit bookshelves in 1996.  But like most people, I became a fan of the novels only after the show premiered.  In fact,  A Song of Ice and Fire  may be the first series that I wanted to read simply because I was spoiled for the entire thing.  A wonderful overview at Salon.com gave me a taste for what lay in store.  A massive rebellion that overthrows a cruel king?  His daughter frees a "continent" of slaves?  Sibling sex?  What's not to intrigue?  So after two episodes of the TV show, I picked up the first novel, and did not put the serie...