Author Archives: `Lex Pendragon

I am `Lex from #HorizonLabs and #DrunkPete "fame". I am a Marvel fanboy, and am a big enough geek that my kids are named after a famous literary bird, a verse-traveling space hooker, and the first lady of Star Trek/computer AI. Feel free to drop me a line if you're curious about anything else, or check out my Mastodon instance.

Bureau’s Breakroom’s Television Table – Week beginning 2020 November 15

The first thing in this list that jumped out at me was the fact that I can’t see a listing anywhere for the third episode of this season’s Blacklist, and this week’s is labeled as “Conclusion,” but a bit of web research is inconclusive but seems to indicate they are referring to the fact that it’s season seven’s conclusion, pushed to this season.  Going in reverse order this week, we also get Marvel’s 616, a series that examine the characters in-universe.  The two best genre shows currently on television, possibly the two best shows on television at all, also appear.  The Mandalorian doesn’t give us a description, and some of the crew of Discovery are going to meet with Book.  Reinforcements show up to deal with the pandemic on The Good Doctor.  In His Dark Materials, Lyra crosses into the show’s version of our real world.

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut, except when there really aren’t any. (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click Continue reading →)]

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Bureau’s Breakroom’s Television Table – Week beginning 2020 November 8

We get more shows returning, as Blacklist pits Red against Liz this season, and His Dark Materials shows Lyra and Will arriving in a new location.  The Good Doctor, after last week’s brutal look at Coronavirus from the view of the hospital workers, continues to pummel our feels with the second half of the episode.  Meanwhile out in space, Discovery heads for the Federation headquarters and The Mandalorian searches for the Mandalorian’s headquarters.

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut, except when there really aren’t any. (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click Continue reading →)]

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Movie Review: The Craft: Legacy

The Craft was a 90’s movie showing us the horror of what happens of teen girls misuse witchcraft.  Since Hollywood has run out of ideas, someone found this and decided to remake it with new kids.  The kids actually look like kids, (though admittedly it could be because I am an old man now.)  I went in fairly blind, so there were at least one or two surprised directions things went in for me.  Very little of the movie was original, but they were the expected twists from other types of movies rather than the standard “teen witches” twists.  That is to say, it wasn’t that things were surprising, it was surprising they were being done in The Craft.  Overall, what has Blumhouse conjured up?

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Bureau’s Breakroom’s Television Table – Week beginning 2020 November 1

It was at this point that I realized all of the shows I typically am putting on our Television Table are missing.  I see that the CW has delayed its offerings until January, but we have a trickle of the regular shows returning here, starting with this week’s season premier of The Good Doctor.  Outside of that, our regular genre shows for the week are Star Trek: Discovery and The Mandalorian.  Is anyone else amused that these two titans of the genre are going head to head for release dates?

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut, except when there really aren’t any. (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click Continue reading →)]

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October Review: The Haunting of Bly Manor

You thought a review of The Magicians was the best we could offer to cap off Spooky Season? No! We have a genuine haunting!

Netflix was happy to supply us with more haunted houses for Halloween.  This year’s Haunting is a follow up from The Haunting of Hill House, this time with The Haunting of Bly Manor.  The series is an anthology style, so if you skipped Hill House, you can still dive in without missing anything.  If you like anxiety, this will make you second guess the noises you hear in your house.  Does it hold up compared to the first season?

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October Review: The Magicians (Season 1, 2, 3, and 4)

While witches have laid claim to Halloween, magicians and magics can be found year round if you know where to look.  The place to look is now Syfy, (or Netflix,) in the simply named The Magicians.

The show is like Harry Potter: The Graduate Years, feeling like the sort of twenty something drama you’d expect from The CW but without pretending like the kids are still in high school.  It feels about as Buffy as you can get without actually having Joss Whedon involved.  Here, we have a review for seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4.  It’s worth noting that I started this review when I was mid season two, and as I finished a season I revised the review, and the score keeps climbing.

 

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Bureau’s Breakroom’s Television Table – Week beginning 2020 October 25

So if Star Trek: Discovery was so terrifying, who could possibly show up to give it competition for our screen time? The Mandalorian, of course.  Sure, we have some animation, with Spider-Man and his Big Hero 6 buddies from Marvel, their Disney buddies of DuckTales, and that quiet caveman on Primal, but the big action is obviously in live action (or at least in CGI.)

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut, except when there really aren’t any. (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click Continue reading →)]

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Bureau’s Breakroom’s Television Table – Week beginning 2020 October 18

Star Trek: Discover was clearly too terrifying for all of the other shows to give us any more episodes, so their second episode is the only live action show this week.  Last week we saw where Burnham ended up, this week we can find out where the crew shows up.  DuckTales isn’t afraid of danger and dive into it, as does Primal, but Primal is still so scared it is dumbstruck.

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut, except when there really aren’t any.  (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click Continue reading →)]

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October Countdown: Color Out of Space (2019)

October has developed the name “Spooky Season” this year, but this movie, from a story who created an entire genre of horror goes beyond Spooky to horrifying.

A podcast was describing the acting of Nicholas Cage, and had mentioned this film.  During a discussion with some friends, it was mentioned that Color Out of Space was a Lovecraft story, and that was enough to peak my interest, as Lovecraft is a well respected figure in the horror genre, and I enjoy Nicholas Cage’s antics.  While I am not typically a horror movie fan, I wanted to give this one a shot, and as October is a month for it, we get a Bureau 42 review from it as well!

 

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Bureau’s Breakroom’s Television Table – Week beginning 2020 October 11

It looks like the renovations are nearly complete, and the Bureau is looking pretty spiffy, huh?  I hope you’re enjoying the new look, as, unless you are into animation, there isn’t much to look at on the Breakroom Television.  Unless you saved some of Bly Manor from last week, you’ll have to wait 930 years for Discovery to return.

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut, except when there really aren’t any.  (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click Continue reading →)]

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