Queen of the Sisiutl

Overview

This post contains reviews for last night's episodes of Primeval: New World and Sinbad as aired on SyFy. There is also a small Housekeeping section below the reviews.

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not seen last night's episodes of Sinbad or Primeval: New World, please leave the blog and come back later. My reviews always contain spoilers.

Also, there's some swearing so just be aware of that.

Sinbad - "Queen of The Water Thieves" - Review

Okay so, this episode was essentially the crew getting captured by a savage culture and Sinbad befriending a giant bird and then becoming de facto leader. I wasn't impressed. Yeah, the CG on the bird was pretty awesome, but it was really the only impressive thing about this episode.

I found Razia incredibly boring. While she was supposed to be the bad ass leader of the Water Thieves, she didn't come off that way. I think she seemed spoiled, actually. I also didn't like that she essentially felt she had to lecture Sinbad on being a leader... and then essentially did nothing while her son was being killed. Razia's grip on her "people" was obviously tenuous. Honestly, Sophie Okonedo was more convincing as Liz 10 on Doctor Who than she was as Razia. The apparently lack of society there also bugged me. Yes, they're savages, but they've got a queen and no real line of succession... except who can be the coldest, most heartless asshole ever.

I also honestly don't care about any of the crew. They're all pretty generic. The Cook's parts were slightly funny, but really obvious. I'm also already tired of Lord Akbar and his witch, Taryn. That entire part with Sinbad's family wasn't necessary, in my opinion.

And about the end of the episode... if there's no wind until the bird starts flapping behind the boat, then how is the boat going any further? Birds do not make wind, even giant ones. They're pretty much stranded for a while, unless the bird's going to be flapping behind them forever.

So... I basically thought this was a crap episode. We'll see if next week's episode is any better.

Primeval: New World - "Sisiutl" - Review

I am trying really hard to keep Primeval: New World separated from Primeval in my head, really I am. Again, this was an episode I thought the parent series did better. I get that we had to establish to a new audience that Anomalies could appear underwater. I get that they didn't want to repeat the giant crocodile that Primeval did. I get that a giant snake worked better with local mythology. I just don't think it was very well done.

I think part of my problem with the plot of this was all the jumping around that happened. We had to jump from Evan to Mac to Dylan to Toby to Angelika to Evan and the native dude to Angelika and Lieutenant Leeds back to Evan and the native dude to... you get the idea. I didn't like all the jumping around. It made the story seem choppy, even when it shouldn't have been.

That said... I really, really don't like Angelika. I don't know what her motivation is, but she's generally acting like a bitch to everyone. I didn't appreciate the way she decided to handle things. I'm not happy that she's going to be looking for a way to close the Anomalies. Mind you, I know from Primeval that the Anomalies can be closed, just not permanently. Angelika is looking for a permanent solution to a problem she essentially just found out about and I don't like it. I also didn't like that she went behind Evan's back to talk to Leeds about talking to Evan.

I didn't really have a problem with the snake, for the most part. I thought it was rather ridiculous that it went off after sound even when it could see and smell a tasty snack right in front of its face. Other than that, I thought the snake was a good choice, given the circumstances surrounding it.

I did not like the protest thing. Yes, I understand these things happen all the time. I live in the US. It's like the protest capital of the world. I just didn't like how the protest was used, nor do I care about any of the characters involved with the protest. They could have all been eaten by the snake and it wouldn't have bothered me at all.

But anyway... that's all I've got to say about this episode. Let me know what you thought about it and the episode of Sinbad down in the comments.

Housekeeping

As it's Father's Day today I'm not actually writing this post today. This is me from last night typing all this up. Tomorrow, though, will be the present me reviewing some books I just finished... and then doing Warehouse 13 Initial Reactions later in the evening. I'd delay the reviews, but I kind of want to get them out sooner rather than later.

Love ya, Jessie.

Pilot The New World

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not seen the first episodes of Sinbad or Primeval: New World, please leave the blog and come back after you've seen them. My reviews usually contain spoilers.

However, if you'd like to skip the reviews and jump down to my Altador Cup Update and Housekeeping sections, please feel free to do so. Happy Reading!

Sinbad - "Pilot" - Review

Sinbad is essentially the tale of a kid who got himself into trouble with a high-ranking official of some sort and his own overly harsh grandmother. It's also another one-season show that SyFy is airing and sort of attempting to pass off as one of their shows... at least, that's the gist of what I gleaned from the commercials. I didn't know that Sinbad wasn't a SyFy show until I checked its Wiki Page and found out that it wasn't. This summer's Saturday evening schedule is essentially made up of a pair of shows that have already been cancelled by the people who originally made them... gah!

But I just digressed down a rabbit hole so... back on track here...

I wasn't overly impressed by the "Pilot" episode of Sinbad. It was a lot of setup and not a lot of actual goings on. I'm not overly fond of or really connected to any of the characters, most of whom end up discarded halfway through the episode. It's really important to me to be able to connect with the characters because if they care about things that are going on, I will. But... this didn't happen. I'm not even sure who half the characters are, at this point.

But yeah... plot point, plot points... Lord Akbari is cruel and insane. Sinbad's grandmother is crazy and overly harsh. Akbari's witch friend is... obviously up to something but hasn't really given her motivations. The crew of the ship Sinbad ends up on are apparently mostly dead... or something... and I'm not surprised at this point that Sinbad got cancelled.

The "Pilot" takes too much time getting Sinbad to where he ends up at the end of the episode. I feel like this episode could have been better done as flashbacks. That said, the effects realizing the "sea demon" were stellar. I'm not sure why it was blind, but... meh. I'm gonna keep watching and see if Sinbad gets better.

Primeval: New World - "The New World" - Review

Before I get into reviewing "The New World" I thought I'd give a little background on my history with Primeval. I pretty much marathon-ed Seasons 1-3 on DVD while I was living in Iowa. I fell almost instantly in love with Connor, Abby, Claudia, and Rex. They're what drew me into the show and kept me watching. Well, that and the premise was interesting. I sort of forgot about Primeval for a whole until I found it again on OnDemand. I then marathon-ed Seasons 4 and 5 before re-watching the entire series with my little sister. I had no idea Primeval: New World existed until I was catching up on Defiance two weeks ago. I saw the trailer, saw Connor was at least making a cameo, and decided to watch Primeval: New World as it's airing on SyFy.

And now for the blanket SPOILER WARNING. Because I'm a big fan of Primeval, I will be making references to it. If you read through my Initial Reactions last night, you'll have seen some of those. I'll also probably be comparing the two a bit. I'll try to keep that to a minimum, though. Now, on to my review.

I thought "The New World" was... a pilot. There were elements from the original show I recognized, but a cast I largely didn't. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about Primeval: New World yet. I'll keep watching and let you know as I go along.

As of right now, I feel next to no connection to any of the characters. I know I'm not really fond of Angelika. I have no feelings towards Mac or Toby. I thought Lieutenant Leeds was a Connor/Mulder type character down in his little office. I honestly didn't recognize Sara Canning as Dylan until my sister pointed out that she played Jenna in The Vampire Diaries. I kind of like her, but she seriously reminds me of Claudia Brown/Jenny Lewis from Primeval looks-wise. Evan Cross was a tad more relatable, but then, I was really fond of Zane Donovan, the character Niall Matter played on Eureka. So... that's where I stand with the PNW characters.

The plot was your standard "Oh there's this weird thing that spits out monsters that we must find before the monsters eat everybody" kind of plot. I think Primeval did it better. It was less cohesive in PNW and had some less than believable characters so... there's that.

So, about Connor. As I stated before, Connor Temple was one of the characters that sucked me into Primeval. I felt like, the Connor we're getting in PNW either had something really, really bad happen to him between Primeval and PNW or else the writers haven't really written for him before and aren't sure how to write him effectively. He was a lot more serious and mysterious than he manages to come off anywhere in Primeval. The only time we get a glimpse of Primeval Connor is when he's trying to convince Angelika that he's there to "fix the internet from being slow." Hopefully, as the trailer showed Connor again, we'll get more backstory on what happened to get him to Canada.

So yeah, that's pretty much what I thought about "The New World." Not exactly sure where the series is gonna go from here. It'd doubtful they'll become another ARC. It's also unclear was to who the frozen person is that Evan's got hidden. I kind of want to know about that. Again, I'll keep watching and let you know.

Altador Cup Update

At some point last week there was a bracket shake up and so pretty much everyone's in a different bracket now. Shenkuu is now in the Alabriss Bracket. We're currently ranked fifth and are doing kind of horribly overall. We've been managing to grab some wins with the mini-games, but when if comes to Yooyuball, we're sucking gigantically.

Also, the Staff Tournament has started up so go pick your teams for that. That's all you have to do: pick your team.

Housekeeping

Tomorrow is Warehouse 13 and Defiance day! I'll be putting up my Initial Reactions for Warehouse 13 tomorrow evening and will most likely have reviews up Tuesday. Gonna hold off on posting my Fringe, Season 3 review until later in the week, though.

Love ya, Jessie.